


The Way the Wind Blows

by surpanakha



Category: Warrior Nun (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Hanahaki Disease, Pre-World War II, Strangers to Lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-17 12:21:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29100213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/surpanakha/pseuds/surpanakha
Summary: Beatrice is a believer with a mysterious affliction. Ava could not seem to grasp the enormity of her miraculous gifts. For Beatrice, the healing of her mortal body might spell the death of her eternal soul.An Avatrice Hanahaki Disease AU
Relationships: Sister Beatrice/Ava Silva
Comments: 18
Kudos: 70





	1. The Believer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [leet911](https://archiveofourown.org/users/leet911/gifts).



> For @leet911, who posted the prompt;
> 
> Thanks to @Memento_Vivere_20 for being a great sounding board for my ideas. I wish I could write Ava as well as you do. 
> 
> Many thanks also to @sandslepands on twitter for the help with the Spanish translation and @silasfinch, writer of OG Ava as a miracle girl.
> 
> I hope I got most of the elements of a Hanahaki story correctly. I haven't heard of the Hanahaki disease until a few days ago.

The family patriarch was in his late twenties when he arrived in England aboard a ship together with the rest of the Chinese legation. It was the early twentieth century, and before arriving at the British port, Pa has never set foot more than two thousand kilometers outside his home country.

Pa had always likened himself to the bamboo grass, always bending in the direction of the wind. In his case, the wind was his own father’s will. His father was an influential taipan in Beijing. When the Chinese markets became too saturated for his business, he looked to the West for trade, and his empire grew even larger. He cozied up to the British, and they liked him so much that when he sought to enroll his eldest son in one of the schools for the British in Hong Kong, the foreigners, who normally would not want their kids to mix with the Chinese, welcomed my Pa with open arms.

For Pa, being a part of the Chinese legation to England was the plan all along. He did not have it in him to be a diplomat at first. As a boy, he had wanted to become an engineer to help the farmers in the countryside get efficient irrigation for their crops so that they would not have to break their own backs. Pa’s father molded him into the man he grew up to be. The perfect English he had was from his years in the British school, his polished manners and manicured actuation were from the harsh etiquette tutors his father hired. Instead of drinking his tea pure, Pa took his with milk, honey, and scones. He was raised as a Western boy and was baptized Catholic, alienated from his friends back in Beijing. He said he never had a sweetheart back home because he found no one he could converse about Locke and Hobbes with. Pa said that he found the free spirit of a European woman attractive.

Although it is with doubt that the free spirit of Ma was what drew him to her. When Pa set foot in that foreign port, he already had his future wife waiting for him. Ma was a quiet woman, just shy of twenty one, with beautiful brown hair and even more exquisite brown eyes. Her freckles would have shone under the sun, but it was a rainy British afternoon, with her umbrella in her gloved hand, when she first set eyes on her future husband.

It was Ma’s father who first shook the hand of Pa. Her father owned a large shipping line, the second-largest in England at that time, and he was business partners with Pa’s father. He had a young daughter who he could not marry off, he said. He would consider it a debt of gratitude if Pa’s father could save her from the scandal. Pa’s father told him that he had a diplomat son looking to get settled in England and in need of a proper British wife. And so, the deal was set.

Ma and Pa had a Western wedding in a church. It was only after they became man and wife that Pa learned all sorts of things about his bride. In her late teens, Ma had run away and became a novitiate in a convent in Spain. She had been kicked out after a scandal. Gossip traveled fast, even over the sea, and Ma was pretty much shunned by the British high society when she returned. Pa had learned about sexual inverts from his foreign classmates back in Hong Kong. He never bothered to ask whether Ma's misconduct was somehow related to that lifestyle, perhaps because he thought he had cured that affliction when their only daughter was born twelve years into the marriage. The girl had her father’s raven hair, and her mother’s brown eyes and freckles. She was named after St. Beatrice of Silva, her mother’s patron saint.

Pa had wished to marry a free-spirited woman, but the only spirit Ma had left after the marriage was in the bottles she used to cope with her unhappy life. Ma starts drinking at ten in the morning. In the afternoon, she mixes her tea with liquor, and would down half a bottle of Shiraz after dinner. She has learned to pace herself for a habit of a lifetime, just enough to drown her sorrows yet not enough to give her hangovers come morning. When Beatrice was about eight months old, she almost drowned in a tub because Ma was too drunk to hold her steady while giving her a bath. From that point on, Pa, who had wanted to become a hands-on parent unlike the one he had, hired nannies to look after his only child. Ma’s father died when Beatrice was four, and that was when Mother Superion moved in. She was a friend of Ma’s back in her convent who left almost at the same time as she did. Unlike Ma, Mother Superion did not have the safety net of a rich father. The nanny was dismissed, and she was employed as a governess and a private tutor. She functioned more as Ma’s monitor, keeping bottles out of reach when she has had too much.

Pa found the arrangement convenient. His only daughter would have a strict, Catholic upbringing without him having to send her to boarding school, and with an old friend in the house, Ma had begun to become functional again, enough to withstand Pa's companionship in state dinners and benefit galas. In Pa's eyes, he had a stable, normal family. He had wanted a son to continue his legacy but knew that pushing Ma to bear another child might send her to the brink. Besides, Beatrice was a brilliant child. She took to books instead of dolls, stayed up reading philosophers’ works instead of sleeping over at friends’. If he cannot have a son, he vowed to mold Beatrice into a person with the rank and privilege of a British man, pretty much like what his own father did. Undoubtedly, Pa would have to work harder than his old man because Beatrice was a woman, but that would not stop him. He had high expectations for Beatrice and her daughter delivered.

Until the girl turned seventeen.

A messenger from the school Beatrice was enrolled in was sent to Pa’s office one afternoon. He was needed at the principal’s office, the messenger said. His daughter had been caught engaging in corrupt activity in one of the loos of a school building that was not in use because it was being renovated. Pa knew that as a teenager, Beatrice would be more predisposed to give in to worldly temptations. She deserved a stern talking to, at the most. Except that her daughter was enrolled in an exclusive school for girls.

Pa pulled Beatrice out of school. He made her choose between marrying a British naval officer as soon as she turned eighteen, or being shipped to her mother’s former convent to sort out her ways. Beatrice chose the latter. She chose to save her eternal soul.

For her first year in the convent, Beatrice kept mostly in line. She woke up early and did her chores, recited her prayers, and tended the garden. She spent most of her days in silence and seclusion, accompanied only by the tomes of religious texts and catechistic literature she chooses to surround herself with. Beatrice was in search of God. She wanted to know the path of life to salvation. The young girl spent most of her waking moments in supplication for the sins of her past. Sometimes, she would find Jesus in the smile of one of the nuns, the flair of their eyelashes, or the grace in their walk. During those trying moments she would throw herself further into her studies, begging for even more mercy for entertaining such evil thoughts.

During her second and last year as a novitiate, Beatrice thought she had truly earned God’s favor. Living her best years in the company of women was a trial, and like every test she took in her life, she passed it with flying colors. She learned to rein in her desires and taught herself not to give a second thought to another woman’s charms. Beatrice truly believed that she has been cleansed, saved, redeemed.

She was preparing to take her vows when the wind came. It was a particularly sweltering summer night, and Beatrice left the windows of her room open. In the middle of her slumber, there was a gush that went straight to her chest, knocking her breath out of her lungs in a torrential bout of coughing. What started as a tiny trickle in her throat only worsened throughout the week that she lied helpless in the convent's hospital wing, unable to perform her duties. She grew pale and ran a temperature and none of the doctors that came to treat her were able to figure at what was wrong. _Was it a bug? Was it the weather? Was this another test from the heavens?_

By the second week, her father came to take her back to England where he thought the physicians were superior. He was advised that the travel might worsen her condition and Beatrice had begged him to let her stay until she could take her vows. Yet Pa’s decision was set in stone. In his mind, Beatrice had already straightened her ways and this affliction was caused by being so far away from her family. It was time to return.

Yet none of the British doctors could diagnose the disease that has afflicted Beatrice, either. Every night, the cough worsened, trailing through her lungs like a thorny vine as she languished in her old room with only her books for company. She embraced the suffering, praying night and day for the forgiveness that never came. Beatrice realized that two years in the convent was not enough penance for her sins.

When her Pa turned to medicine, her Ma had turned to miracles. Ma sought all types of cure for her daughter, at least when she was sober: priests with divine oils, a healing spring, miraculous holy relics. None had worked, and Beatrice continued to deteriorate, all but dead and alone in her room, with only Mother Superion as constant company.

One night, she overhead her Pa and Ma in the middle of an argument. Ma had heard of a miracle worker in Andalusia, an orphan to whom the Virgin Mary has supposedly appeared. Her renown has spread all over Europe and people from all over, particularly the sick, are coming to request her intercession.

“You don’t suppose I will have my daughter travel all the way to Spain after I dragged her back from the convent?” Pa’s voice could be heard booming across the hallway where Beatrice’ room was situated.

“I’ve heard all sorts of tales, this girl is making the crippled walk, making the blind see...,” Ma reasoned. Beatrice was surprised that she did not drawl at all.

“From the newspaper clipping you sent me this morning, it seems like this miracle girl of yours is chained to her wheelchair. What kind of miracle worker could not cure herself?” Pa spat.

“Every single saint suffered, but they led others to the light. Even Jesus could have extricated himself from the cross, but still, he chose to save mankind,” Ma replied.

“Do not use the Lord’s name in vain,” Pa said with a warning tone.

“We have tried everything and nothing has worked, not even to relieve her from the pain,” Ma pleaded. “She is your only daughter.”

“No. Beatrice will not travel back to Spain and that’s final,” Pa replied curtly.

“But I’ll see what I can do to bring that girl here,” he added, his tone softening. Beatrice felt a tinge of sadness for her father. More than two decades in a loveless marriage and he still wanted to please her Ma.

 _A girl who works miracles, someone the Virgin has appeared to?_ If her father could bring her all the way to London, Beatrice would truly be grateful. She wanted to know how this girl lived her life, the virtues she upheld, the morals she held herself against. She wanted to know her favorite passages from the Bible, the saints she was trying to emulate. She needed to see for herself what made the Virgin Mary appear to this miracle girl because if she was being honest, Beatrice wanted that for herself.

Her father worked fast, and two weeks later, the girl was in Beatrice’ room after breakfast, sitting on a wheelchair that was being pushed by an old and rather drab-looking nun in a dull gray habit. Pa, Ma, and Mother Superion followed the pair shortly. It was the latter who helped the sick girl sit up on her bed to meet her visitor eye-to-eye.

“Esta es Beatrice, la chica que necesita tu ayuda,” the nun said as she smiled at the girl on the bed. It was a pitying kind of smile, the one Beatrice hated the most.

The miracle girl grinned, her smile eating almost her whole face. Beatrice thought that she looked rather young, probably younger than she was by a few years. Her long brown hair was unkempt and the white dress she wore under her gray cardigan looked ill-fitting, like it was handed down to her. A blue cotton blanket was draped on top of her legs.

“Ella vive en esta gran casa con un jardín en la parte trasera y un dormitorio propio, ¿por qué necesitaría ayuda?” she told the nun.

Beatrice, who had learned Spanish in her two years in the convent, understood her reply. She expected that a person to whom the Virgin has shown herself would speak more kindly. The sick girl was intrigued.

“Cállate y haz tus milagros! Su padre corre con todos los gastos de la renovación del orfanato,” the nun hissed in the miracle girl’s ear.

“Does she speak English?” Pa asked, unable to mask the disgust and concern in his voice.

“When she wants to,” the girl replied, looking up from where she sat to make eye contact with Pa. Beatrice’ mouth hung open. Never, in her twenty years, did she ever hear anyone address her father so boldly.

“Ava!” the nun scolded her ward.

“Hi, Ava,” Beatrice said, trying to dispel the tension. “I am Beatrice. Thank you for coming to see me.”

“Yeah, who could really say no to three square meals a day and working plumbing?” Ava replied. She did not sound accusatory, but rather, teasing. Beatrice could not help the smile that formed on her lips. Her head immediately dropped upon seeing the scandalized look on her father’s face.

“Well, get on with it, let’s see what you’ve got,” Pa barked, more to the nun than the miracle girl. The nun made to push the wheelchair but Ava stopped her.

“I can wheel myself to the bed, thanks,” Ava said. She positioned her strong arms and grabbed her chair’s wheels, rolling over to the sick girl with the use of her hands. The chair squeaked as Ava neared Beatrice. Like the dress the girl was wearing, the wheelchair looked old and ill-fitting, like it was passed down by an orphan who had to leave the institution where Ava came from, or perhaps died. Beatrice made the sign of the cross at the thought.

“Yes, that’s right, pray that this thing works because frankly, I don’t know what the hell I am doing,” Ava said upon seeing the gesture.

“We do not speak that kind of language in this house!” Pa remarked. The man looked like he wanted to throw the visitors out, but Ava merely shrugged. She faced Beatrice and took a deep breath. The miracle girl rubbed her palms together and placed a hand on top of Beatrice’ chest, just beneath her collar bones.

The sick girl did not know what she expected to happen, only that she did expect something to happen. She did not think that the heavens would open up, or that she would hear holy trumpets, but she at least thought that the pain in her chest would subside. Beatrice was not prepared for another bout of coughing that racked through her lungs like fire crystallizing into ice in her throat.

“What is this farce? Sister, is this a scheme? Are you conning us?” Pa approached the nun who was with Ava. She squirmed under her father’s towering stature.

“Ava needs to concentrate. She cannot work her miracles under such scrutinizing gaze,” the nun explained. “Some cases are indeed that complicated, many travelers from all over Europe are forced to stay in the vicinity of the orphanage because their treatments would last months.”

“So you could charge them for room and board?” Pa said. “Our family already spent money bringing the both of you here. You are not going to squeeze another quid from us.”

“We should give them a chance, and Ava is tired. She just arrived,” it was Ma who spoke, putting a hand on Pa’s shoulder. It was a rare show of affection. Beatrice’ parents rarely touched in front of other people.

“You should set Ava up here in Beatrice’ room,” the nun suggested. “That will help her concentrate her efforts on healing your daughter.”

Beatrice’ heart hammered through her chest at the proposition. She had long made peace that the disease she was afflicted with was a test from God. Having another woman sleep inside her room might undo all the work she has done to cleanse her soul in the past two years.

“That is ridiculous and unnecessary,” Pa replied. “We will set the girl up in the room down the hall. She is not to work on my daughter without supervision.”

Pa eyed Beatrice and she immediately knew what his words meant. Shame overcame the girl and she looked down her lap. No matter how she tried to still have value, no matter what she put herself through to erase her flaws, her father would never forget that one time she disappointed him.

“And if, for some reason, Ava cannot heal your daughter -" the nun started.

“So long as this is not a scheme to defraud me, Sister Frances, I will take care of your orphanage,” Pa said. “I am a man of my word.”

“Then you can have Ava here for as long as you need,” Sister Frances replied.

“Three months will do,” Pa replied. “If Beatrice does not improve by then, I’ll send her packing back to you. And your ship leaves this evening. The servants will make sure that you are well rested before your journey.”

“And what of Ava? Surely you can see that she requires assistance in her day to day affairs,” Sister Frances asked. Out of the nun's sight, Beatrice saw the miracle girl roll her eyes.

“We have plenty of staff members running this house, sister. You have nothing to worry about your ward,” Pa replied.

“Oh, I’m not worried about her,” Sister Frances replied. “It is you I am worried about. Ava can be an inconvenience most of the time.”

Beatrice’ head shot up. She wondered how the nun could say something like that within the other girl's earshot. She wondered how she could take it. The girl, meanwhile, merely made a face and shook her head.

“Let’s continue this conversation outside, shall we? Beatrice needs her rest,” Mother Superion spoke for the first time. “And perhaps, Ava, too. She just came from a long journey.”

Pa nodded. “Would you care to show Ava her room? I have more important affairs to attend to. It has been a pleasure meeting all of you.”

With one last nod to the women, he turned around and left.

Ma led Sister Frances out of the door and it was Mother Superion who pushed Ava’s wheelchair. The miracle girl took one last look at Beatrice and gave her a smile before she, too, was out of sight.

xxx

That night, Beatrice was awoken from her slumber by a familiar squeaking sound. She shifted suddenly in bed. The thick book that she was reading until she fell asleep thudded on her carpeted floor. By the light of the moon that shone through her drawn curtains, she saw Ava beside the bed, giggling. Once Beatrice’ eyes have adjusted to the dark, she noticed that the other girl was wearing a pair of old, blue, silk pajamas, the ones she used to own before she left for the convent.

“Sorry about that, I did not mean to startle you,” the miracle girl said. “You dropped your book.”

She crouched on her wheelchair, angling its wheels so she could reach the giant tome. Beatrice tried to beat her to it in order to help her, but the other girl caught her by the wrist.

“I can still reach the floor, Beatrice. I yet have use for my hands,” Ava said.

“I only wanted to help,” Beatrice replied.

“It is a simple task,” Ava said. “I caused you to drop your book, so I will retrieve it for you, princesa.”

Beatrice took her hand back, visibly shaken by what the other girl called her. She saw Ava struggle until her fingertips finally grazed the edges of the book. She pulled the volume towards her, finally getting her hand on its spine. The miracle girl grunted as she sat back up, and squinted as she read the title.

“Summa Theologica,” she read under the moonlight. “Interesting choice. No wonder you fell asleep. Here you go, princesa.”

Ava handed her the book back. The tips of the miracle girl’s fingers just barely brushed the other girl’s knuckles, but it caused Beatrice to shiver, sending another rack of coughing through her lungs. She tasted blood in her mouth and wiped it with the white cheesecloth that was on the bedside table. Ava saw that it was already soaked in dry, dark red liquid.

“How did you get inside my room?” Beatrice asked.

“Oh, I phased through the wall,” Ava said nonchalantly. The other girl’s eyes widened.

‘Was this one of the miracles she could perform through the Virgin?’ Beatrice thought. Ava chuckled when she saw the look on the other girl's face.

“I was kidding,” the miracle girl said. “I picked your lock.”

She showed Beatrice a shiny, black bobby pin that she was holding in her other hand before she placed it back on her hair to tame her unruly locks.

“You know how to...pick locks?” Beatrice said incredulously.

“Well, when you rarely have three square meals a day but you know that all the bread is locked away in the kitchen, you tend to learn many skills,” Ava replied.

The girl on the bed was beginning to wonder whether Ava’s miracles were an act, a charade. She could not think of any reason for the Mother to appear to the girl in front of her. Objectively speaking, Ava was brash and unpolished. She seemed to have the complete inability to take the situation seriously and was devoid of a grasp of the significance of her gifts. Yet Beatrice remembered all the saints who led the lives of sinners, and who were redeemed by the Lord’s holy hand in the end. Maybe Ava’s case was similar.

Another round of coughing came. This time, Beatrice tasted something else aside from the rusty tang of blood. The object filled her mouth, and she had no choice but to spit them out on her cheesecloth.

“You are coughing yellow petals?” Ava asked, sounding worried for the first time as she took a piece from the cloth. “Since when?”

“Only at night when it’s colder,” Beatrice replied.

“Your father never mentioned you coughing up flowers,” Ava said.

“They don’t know. I hide the petals under the bed,” Beatrice replied. The girl felt vulnerable and bold at the same time. Despite her current affliction, it has been so long since she allowed herself to appear weak in front of another individual. “I’m afraid, Ava. What if they think this is the work of the devil? I’m trying extremely hard to take the righteous path in life.”

There was a bewildered look in the sick girl’s eyes. Now that she has opened herself up to Ava, the other truth that she has kept in a tight box for years was threatening to come out. Another coughing bout, another batch of petals were expelled from her mouth.

The miracle girl touched her chest on the same spot as she did earlier this morning. Her palm was warm and it somehow soothed the pain within her lungs, even if only for a fraction of time.

“There are flowers inside you, tulips of yellow,” she said with her eyes closed. “There is something more, isn’t it? Something you are not telling.”

“There’s always more,” was all Beatrice could reply.

“Whatever it is you’re hiding, it is killing you from inside,” Ava replied, letting the hand that was on the other girl’s chest fall on the bed.

“What if there are two kinds of death, Ava? What if the survival of my mortal vessel will lead to the death of my immortal soul?” Beatrice’ asked. Her lips began to tremble.

The other girl seemed to understand. “I think you are placing such a big bet on eternal life, when the life that you have, that one that you’re actually living, is right here.”

Beatrice looked scandalized, her mouth hung open and she blinked rapidly. It took her a few more seconds before she could respond.

“Surely, you are not a non-believer? The Virgin appeared before you,” Beatrice remarked.

“If there is a non-believer in this room, it is you,” Ava replied. Beatrice could not believe what she was hearing yet she let the other girl continue. “You have doubt that I saw the Virgin. You have doubt that I came here to heal you.”

“I, uh -“ Beatrice stammered and then closed her mouth. The other girl was not exactly wrong.

“And you don’t believe that the Holy Mother would embrace you in her arms if you live your truth,” Ava added.

“I, I’m not sure what you mean,” Beatrice replied.

“You know exactly what I mean,” Ava said.

“Is that one of the Virgin’s gifts? Insight?” Beatrice asked.

“No,” Ava said, and then grinned wide. “I’m just smarter than most people suppose me to be.”

“It is alright if you are not yet ready to believe. I can do the believing for you,” she added. Beatrice was not quite sure what those words meant. 

The miracle girl dropped her smile and moved so suddenly that Beatrice did not have the time nor the strength to react. The girl wheeled herself nearer the bed and took one of Beatrice’ wrists, pulling her closer. Before the other girl knew it, Ava was planting a kiss on her cheek.

The miracle girl’s lips barely grazed her skin, yet the kiss was everywhere in an instant. Beatrice felt the warmth travel from her toes into her lungs. Soon, the fire in her chest was expunged, the ice in her throat dissolved. For the first time in weeks, she could breathe unrestricted.

It was over as soon as it began. Ava pulled away, sinking back into her wheel chair with a satisfied smirk on her face. Without another word, she began wheeling herself backward, until she reached the door and turned its knob.

Beatrice knew she should feel afraid that the squeaking of her chair would wake the entire house, she remembered her father's words that Ava was not to work on her unsupervised, but at that moment, she was overcome with joy at the instant relief from all her aches.

“Goodnight, princesa, I’ll see you tomorrow,” Ava said, winking. She was out of the door before Beatrice could even mouth her gratitude.


	2. The Second Time Over Water

Her madre crossed the Guadiana from Alentejo to Andalucia when she was three years old. Sister Frances always said that it was to escape a scandal back in Portugal. The old nun was quick to make that judgment because her mother came at the church door with no husband in tow, just a little girl in her arms burning with fever.

Sister Frances would have turned them away at the church’s door if not for Padre Martin. The Padre told her mother that there were enough rooms in the orphanage located at the back of the church. There had been an outbreak of tuberculosis the month prior and several beds were vacated. The old priest was quick to assure the young mother that the rooms had been disinfected, of course.

Ava barely even remembers Padre Martin, but recalls him to be kind. He would take the child out into the orphanage garden in the afternoons, pushing her creaking wheelchair across the unkempt grass. At five years old, the wheelchair was at least four times Ava’s size, and she used to lie down on it instead of sitting up, staring at the different shapes of clouds in the sky. It was Padre Martin who taught her the words for each shape.

‘Pájaro’

‘Casa’

‘Gato’

The priest also taught Ava her first language - Spanish. At this point, her madre had been gone for two years and she was too young to pick up any of her Portuguese. Her mother had taken Padre Martin's offer for them to stay the night inside the orphanage but was gone the next morning, leaving behind a three-year-old Ava who was battling polio. The little girl never saw her mother ever again.

What she did see the following night, however, was of the divine. It was the third night of her fever and the little girl did not even know her mother had left her behind. When she was a bit older, Sister Frances told her that it was the same night they had almost given up on her. Padre Martin was ready to perform the first and the final sacraments to give the child a chance to enter heaven. Yet that night, she slept peacefully, experiencing no seizures nor convulsions.

When she woke up, her fever had broken, and the first word on her lips was ‘Maria’.

She was not sure whether it was her first memory, or whether her little mind made everything up to humor Padre Martin and the nuns, but what she remembers from her dream was a beautiful woman dressed in a blue cloak and a red shirt. There was a child in her left arm. She took young Ava in her embrace and the girl has never felt so warm in days that her chilling stopped. A bead of sweat formed on her forehead just as the priest was about to baptize her. 

Padre Martin proclaimed that the Virgin has interceded for Ava, and on the strength of the little girl's account of the Holy Mother, he was not met with any resistance from Sister Frances when he suggested that the orphanage take the little girl in.

Padre Martin was her friend, her protector, and when he was still around, Sister Frances could not touch her. When Ava was about six, Padre Martin was transferred to a congregation in Northern Spain and the little girl never saw him again. The wonder of her vision and the Virgin’s intercession soon waned, and Sister Frances began treating the little girl with the same cold harshness she has for the other orphans, only worse. The night that the Virgin gave Ava her second life, the little girl also lost the use for her legs. The nun resented Ava for all the extra work required in taking care of her. The new priest that took Padre Martin’s place could not care less about St. Michael’s orphanage and he gave Sister Frances free reign over the institution.

xxx

The next time she saw the Virgin was also in a dream, about two years ago when she was seventeen. She thought that she finally came to take Ava, make her walk, and allow her to leave this place once and for all. For years, she had resented the Virgin for not performing that miracle for her. It was not that she hated that she could not use her legs. Her arms grew strong over the years and she quickly learned to adapt. Yet she figured it would be hard to escape from St. Michael’s with a squeaking wheelchair in tow. Ava wanted nothing more than to finally turn eighteen and have Sister Frances throw her out to the streets and allow her to fend for herself like the nun has been itching to do. Except that never happened when she performed her first miracle.

In this dream, the Holy Mother no longer had a child in her arm, and she spoke to her. No, she did not open her mouth, and nothing resembling any human language was uttered, yet somehow, Ava already knew what the Virgin came to tell her.

“You have a mission to help others,” Ava heard, not with her ears, but with her heart. Her chest felt like it was being engulfed by friendly fire, warm fingers of flame tickling the insides of the beating organ.

“Once that mission is over, Christ will perform a miracle for you, and you shall know.”

Ava figured that she had to earn her miracle; she was not walking any time soon. 

The next night, her former roommate, Diego, came knocking on her door. There had been another outbreak of tuberculosis in the orphanage, the first in more than a decade. Learning their lesson from the past outbreak, the nuns of the orphanage designated a ward for those afflicted, separating them from the healthy. Diego had started coughing up blood a month ago and Ava has not seen her friend since then, until that night.

It was not Diego who woke her up in the middle of her slumber, but the wind gushing through the open door. Sister Frances made sure that all the rooms in the dormitory were locked at night, but Ava soon learned how to pick locks to steal food from the kitchen. She sat up and saw Diego underneath her doorway. She wondered whether her friend finally picked up that skill she tried to teach him every night. The surprised look on his face told Ava otherwise. He padded slowly on the floor to approach the girl by the bed.

“Diego, were you sleepwalking?” Ava asked. She was not naive. She knew that tuberculosis was contagious. Yet knowing that the Holy Mother has given her a mission also provided her with a different type of hubris that she touched her friend on the chest with impunity. 

Her palm on his chest grew warm and Diego took a breath that was unimpeded for the first time in a month. A slight pink color started to return to his cheeks.

“She was right. You’re an angel, Ava,” Diego said. “I feel so much better already.”

“Who was right?” Ava asked, knitting her forehead.

“The Virgin,” Diego replied. “She woke me up and told me to come to you. It was she who opened the doors for me.”

“You saw her, too?” Ava asked. 

“Yes, but I am just a messenger,” Diego replied. “She said that your mission is about to begin.”

“And when will my mission end? What am I supposed to do?” Ava asked, holding on to Diego’s arm a little too tightly. She knew that at the end of her mission, she will have a miracle of her own performed on her.

“She says that you shall know,” Diego replied. “Come on, Ava, get on your chair, we have work to do.”

The boy helped her friend to get off the bed and into the wheelchair. He then pushed Ava out of their room and into the dark hallway like he would do in the middle of the night when they’re on to some type of mischief. The girl saw that they were headed to the quarantine ward. The gray double doors were already open and waiting for them - waiting for Ava.

Her friends were awake, all ten orphans isolated from the rest, all coughing up blood on their dirty shirts. A chorus of ‘Ava!’ greeted her as Diego wheeled the girl into the ward. She placed a finger on her lips.

“Hush now, we don’t want Sister Frances to hear us,” Ava said. Her words quieted the entire room. “Not that I care what she thinks but we all want to be done with whatever it is I’m about to do before that old hag comes and wheels me away, won’t we?”

The children sniggered among themselves quietly. 

“You may proceed, Diego,” Ava nodded at the boy and her friend began pushing her to each bedside. The girl placed a hand on the chests of her friends. The gesture had the same effect on each child as it did on Diego: immediate relief for the respiratory system and the color returning to their cheeks. She was just done with her final patient, a fifteen-year-old girl, when they heard the heavy footfalls that were distinctly Sister Frances’.

“Children out of bed after dinner,” Sister Frances exclaimed. She was in her gray, nightdress, the hem billowing against the wind that somehow gushed through the halls of St. Michael’s. Her short-cropped silver hair was uncovered, and there was a candle in her hand, its yellow wax pooling into the porcelain holder.

“You all know what this means,” Sister Frances continued, baring her yellow teeth.

“This was all me, Sister Frances, the children had nothing to do with this,” Ava said, turning her own wheelchair around to face the nun.

“I know that, Ava,” Sister Frances replied. “Come along, back to your room.”

The nun turned around and let Ava wheel herself back into the corridor. The kids would have protested, but the girl merely shook her head. She knew how to deal with Sister Frances on her own.

“Stealing bread again, Ava?” the nun said as they walked through the hallway that led back to Ava and Diego’s room.

“We only ate once today,” the girl replied. “I am hungry.”

“Now we don’t tolerate lying in this institution, Ava,” the nun said, finally facing her ward. 

“I’m not lying. I have been eating once a day this past week. It’s only the first week of the month. It the time when St. Michael’s gets its allowance from your Order. The children should be eating thrice a day, especially those in the tuberculosis ward,” Ava replied, looking up at the nun to challenge her.

“We take care of the children in the ward to the best of our abilities and resources, Ava,” Sister Frances replied. “You trying to play the hero by stealing bread for them only makes us - their real caretakers - look like villains. You know that disease is contagious. That’s why we have separated them. You are only going to harm the others.”

“I wasn’t stealing bread! And I wasn’t lying about eating only once a day!” Ava replied. She did not mean for the words to come out that loud, but they did and there was nothing else she could do about it. Sister Frances’ mouth disappeared into a thin line on her face. She was already very pale, yet at that moment, color managed to drain from her skin.

“You are a liar, Ava. You’ve always been since you were a child. You lied about that apparition with the Virgin. It’s just too bad that Padre Martin was too agreeable. Well, I’m not like him. I can see through you, see what you really are. Not even your harlot mother could stand you that’s why she left you. I’m the only one who truly cared for you, Ava,” the nun said. 

“Don’t talk about my mother like that! You don’t know her!” Ava replied. There were tears streaming down her cheeks. Sister Frances was not exactly wrong when she said she could see through the girl. The nun knew to strike where it hurt the most.

“Well, neither do you, Ava,” Sister Frances smirked. She walked behind the girl to push her wheelchair into the room. Once Ava was inside, she turned her chair around to face the nun who lingered under the doorway.

“You lie about going hungry when we do our best to care for all of you,” Sister Frances started. “Now, you’ll know what it means to be truly hungry.”

The nun punctuated her statement by closing the door on the girl. Ava heard Sister Frances lock the door from the outside, even putting the barrel bolt in place so that none of her lock-picking tricks would work.

Ava was not really fazed. She thought that the most Sister Frances would do was not feed her for an entire day. That wasn’t much of a punishment for her when she’s already been eating once a day. The girl merely shrugged and wheeled herself to her bed.

It was on the third day, her stomach linings acidic, and her mouth cracked from dehydration that she saw her again. The Virgin. This time, the Holy Mother touched her parched lips with her own fingers and Ava tasted honey, or how she always thought honey would taste like.

“My miracle, please,” Ava pleaded. Her words sounded blaring in her head, but in reality, her throat was so hoarse that no sound came out of her mouth. Her bed was soiled, her room smelled and the window has not been opened in days. The girl was too weak to even sit up, let alone hoist herself to her wheelchair. If only she’d be given a chance to walk only for a short while, just enough time to get out of this hellhole, she would be grateful.

“Not yet, my child,” the Virgin replied, cradling Ava’s face with her palm. It felt to the girl like resting her cheek on the soft grass whenever Padre Martin brought her outside before dinner. She wondered if everything was just occurring inside her head.

“I told you, you will get your miracle, and when you do, you will know,” the Virgin said, and then disappeared. On the spot where the Holy Mother stood a mere five seconds ago was Sister Frances flanked by two other nuns who were both covering their noses.

“Is it true, you healed the children, the entire ward?” Sister Frances approached her, shaking her by her shoulders. At this point, Ava was falling in and out of consciousness, she could barely make out the words.

“Sister, you can question her later, we have to clean this place up before the bishop’s assistant arrives,” Sister Lourdes said.

“This place smells like a pigsty!” Sister Florian added. “Why haven’t you let her out for three whole days?”

“She was stealing bread, and lying about being hungry,” Sister Frances replied. Sister Lourdes began removing Ava’s underpants.

“What makes you think she is going to tell the truth about the children in the ward?” Sister Florian asked.

“Eleven children all free of symptoms overnight? Not even this girl could stage that act,” Sister Frances said as if the girl was not in the room and within earshot. “Each child testified to what she did. She touched them on the chest and they immediately felt relief. These are the good children, Sister Florian, unlike this troublemaker.”

“The bishop’s assistant will evaluate her. If it’s true, imagine what advantage this situation could bring to the institution. If it’s not, it won’t be the first time Ava would be lying about seeing the Virgin,” Sister Frances added.

“So, you didn’t believe her the first time?” was the last thing Ava heard before she completely blacked out. 

xxx

The next time she woke up, she could tell that it was almost evening, although the girl had no idea what day it was. There was a plate of dry bread, cheese, a slice of ham, and four pieces of grapes on her bedside table. There was also a pitcher of water and a glass of milk. She went for the milk first. It has been years since she drank it, she almost forgot how divine it tasted.

The second thing she noticed was the clean white dress she was wearing, and the clean sheets on the bed. The third was the man sitting on a stool near the foot of her bed. He still looked young, probably in his mid-thirties, dressed in the same plain white robes Padre Martin used to wear in his day-to-day. There was a pair of round spectacles resting on his nose bridge and his curly hair was slick and oiled. When he smiled, Ava noticed that he had a dimple on his left cheek. This must be the bishop’s assistant.

Ava grabbed the bread and the slice of ham. “Do you mind?”

“Not at all,” the bishop’s assistant replied. There was a bell in his hand that Ava only then noticed. He rang it. Sister Frances entered the room soon enough.

“Ididntrealisewedon’tusenamestocallpeoplearoundhereanymore,” Ava said through a mouthful of bread.

“Ava, what did I say about talking when your mouth is full?” Sister Frances said, before giving a bishop’s assistant a patronizing smile. “Apologies. As I told you, Ava is an unusual vehicle for Our Lady.”

“Many of them are,” the bishop’s assistant replied. “We’ll soon find out what she’s worth.”

As soon as Ava finished eating, the bishop’s assistant interviewed her, asking her questions. He took down notes from time to time and Ava hated not knowing what he thought or where this process was heading.

“What are you writing down there?” Ava asked at one point.

“Your notable answers,” the bishop’s assistant replied, showing the pad to the girl. Sister Frances smirked. His scribbles meant nothing to Ava and the nun knew it.

The interview was over in thirty minutes and it left the girl in a foul mood. Not even the bread finally filling her stomach could appease her. She always hated it when adults decide on the course of her life while leaving her clueless the whole time. She also did not like being reminded of how she did not know how to read. Ava loved stories. She adored many of Padre Martin’s tales: those he recounted from memory and those he read from books. Tom Sawyer. Gulliver’s Travels. Thumbelina. Some afternoons, the pair would trot down to the small orphanage library and Padre Martin would allow Ava to pick up a book. She would choose based on the illustration on the cover, of course, but she ended up loving all of them, anyway.

Padre Martin promised to teach Ava how to read as soon as she turned six, but when the priest left, no one could be bothered about the little girl’s education. When she turned eight, a foreign nun who was seeking to join Sister Frances' order visited the orphanage. She ended up staying there for almost a decade. Ava thought that the nun’s Spanish sounded funny. She said she was from Florida and her name was Sister Margaret.

Ava was fond of Sister Margaret. She was from abroad and had lots of stories to tell. The little girl clung to the nun whenever she could help it. She hardly ever talked to the adults - there was no reason to, yet she made sure to converse with Sister Margaret every day. She picked up her English almost as easily as she picked up Padre Martin’s Spanish. And although she never admitted to it, Ava helped Sister Margaret with her Spanish, too.

“What can you say from your assessment of the girl?” Ava heard Sister Frances ask the bishop’s assistant as they conferred in hushed tones under the doorway of the room.

“We still have to observe what she does next. You said that she has a penchant for not telling the truth?” the bishop’s assistant confirmed.

“Yes. Even her account of the Virgin appearing to her when she was a child is doubtful. You see, our former parish priest, Padre Martin, liked to give the benefit of the doubt,” Sister Frances replied. “But the children in the tuberculosis ward, they have all recovered with no sign of the disease. They all say it was Ava’s doing.”

“As I said, Sister, there are many factors to this. We have to be a hundred percent sure about her before we present her to the Cardinal. Keep a record of her deeds and keep me posted,” the bishop’s assistant said. He bowed his head to Sister Frances and walked away.

xxx

Ava’s friends came to her one by one in the next following days, the children from the orphanage who are suffering from a malady or two. The girl wondered whether the news traveled fast, or whether it was Sister Frances’ spreading the word to try and test her abilities. Many of the children’s illnesses could have been prevented or cured by adequate nutrition, but alas, St. Michael’s would be the last place you’d think of when it comes to three square meals a day. 

As soon as the orphans got better, their chances of getting adopted increased. Over the course of the next three months, Ava saw her friends leave her one by one as they were welcomed in their new homes. The girl was happy for them all; there was nothing more she wanted than for her friends to find loving homes to grow up in. Yet the girl only realized how alone she was when it was Diego’s turn to say goodbye. 

xxx

The news of the miracles in that little orphanage in Andalusia soon spread all over Southern Spain and beyond. People from all over started coming to seek Ava’s help, all with different sorts of ailments, some more severe than others. By this time, she has turned eighteen, yet Sister Frances did not feel the need to throw her out to the streets. Instead, the girl stayed in the orphanage healing the visitors one by one. Still, at the back of her mind, she resented the Virgin for withholding her miracle. Her patients, the believers who flocked to St. Michael’s, came from different lands, with different stories told through different languages. As soon as they are well, they are able to resume their journey with liberty. It was not fair that as soon as Sister Frances closed shop at eight in the evening, Ava was left abandoned in her bed alone, with no one. 

About six months in, Ava’s renown has spread throughout continental Europe, and her work no longer only attracted the sick, but the curious as well. One day, a group of friends in their early twenties arrived at the orphanage. They were led by the most beautiful man Ava has ever seen. He was tall, his skin was sun-kissed, and the smile on his face made the girl want to trust him. He introduced himself as JC and he said he needed her help. Ava saw right through him. She knew that he was just curious about the truth surrounding her miracles. Even Sister Frances thought he and his friends were up to no good, but he had the money to donate to the orphanage so the nun allowed the group an audience with her miracle girl.

The next following days were some of the best of Ava’s life, so far. JC came everyday past Sister Frances’ watchful gaze, with a different ailment each time to consult with Ava. Some days, JC would come with one of his friends, claiming that it was them who was sick. Ava knew he just wanted to see her and frankly, the girl felt flattered that he was even remotely interested. She knew from his stories that he and his friends came traveling from all over Europe. He could just easily move on to his adventures, yet he decided to stop in that lonely orphanage in Andalusia to pay this girl some attention.

And boy, did Ava love JC’s stories! This beautiful man has been everywhere, even as far as Mongolia in the East and Egypt in the South. Ava went through her mundane day of healing the sick, looking forward to six in the evening when JC and one of his friends would come. The boy filled the girl’s evenings with recounts of his adventures in the lands he has visited. He was such a great storyteller that Ava felt that she has set foot all over Europe as well.

Three weeks later, when his money finally ran out, the charade was up. Sister Frances banned JC and his friends from the orphanage. Ava tried to appear strong as the boy bid his farewell, but she cried herself to sleep that night, and the next few nights, imagining how he would have moved on with his life, on to the next country, the next adventure, while she was again abandoned in her bed all alone. JC was kind enough to send her a letter whenever he moved to a different city. Sister Margaret would read her the letters in the evening after Sister Frances has gone to bed.

From then on, Ava made the travelers who sought her help pay her with stories. They still donated to the orphanage, that was a different matter altogether, but Ava asked for that remuneration as the stories made the work worthwhile. In her room, Sister Margaret helped her hang a map of Europe with notes and drawings from the various travelers and Ava looked up at it every night imagining the creaking wheels of her chair going through each country one by one.

xxx

About three months after JC left, a woman with an afflicted child came to Ava for help. She was from Barcelona and hardly left her city of birth so she had no stories from her past to offer. What she offered Ava, instead, was a glimpse into her future. The woman proclaimed herself a soothsayer as she took the girl’s palms in hers, inspecting the lines that featured on the skin.

“You will cross over water on a boat thrice in your life,” the woman started after analyzing her palms. “You’ve already crossed your first. Once you cross your second, you will never set foot in this place again.”

“Where will I go?” Ava replied, curious.

“The way the wind blows,” the woman replied. Ava wrinkled her nose. It’s not at all that helpful for the woman to speak this cryptic.

“Will I get married, then?” Ava humored the woman with her question. Marriage was far from the girl's mind.

“Yes, but not soon. Many many years from now,” the woman replied. She sank back into her seat and returned Ava’s palms to the girl’s lap. “To a person who is not from here.”

Ava’s mind immediately went to JC. She knew he was not originally from Spain. The man was from everywhere and that gave Ava hope. She kept the soothsayer’s words at the back of her mind as an optimistic thought. Frankly, she did not know how she would ever cross the sea. Sister Frances almost never lets her out of her sight. She hardly thought about the fortune teller ever again. Ava surmised that she was probably so devoid of stories so she had to make something up, although the woman correctly predicted that she has already crossed over water once, when her mother traveled from Portugal to Spain carrying as a child. She had to give her that credit.

That was, until the man in the suit came.

He came at night after Sister Frances closed shop. He was wearing a black suit under a brown trench coat and was sweating profusely, blonde tendrils of hair were stuck on his shining forehead. The girl guessed that he came from a place where the weather was colder. There was a black umbrella in his gloved hand that he used as a cane. When he spoke to Sister Frances, Ava finally nailed where this man was from.

‘England,’ she thought.

“Her miracles, they have been consistent?” the man asked, as if Ava was not in the room.

“Yes. It’s been months. She has never failed a single devotee. Some cases are more complicated than others and required more work, particularly those who were doubtful, but she managed to heal them all. Every single one who came to see her,” Sister Frances explained.

The man gave Ava a once-over as she sat on her wheelchair. The girl was itching to change into her night clothes and wanted nothing but for the man to leave.

“And what did the Cardinal say?” the man prodded.

“He gave her boon to continue with her work while we wait to receive word from the Vatican,” Sister Frances replied. “You understand that her work here is important. She could not be away from more than a week.”

“My employer is interested in shouldering the renovation of your institution. State-of-the-art facilities, modern plumbing, nothing from the last century. You name it,” the man replied. “She does not even have to heal his child, she just has to get on board a ferry and try.”

“Let’s continue this discussion in my office, shall we? Refreshments are awaiting.” Sister Frances replied. Her tone changed upon hearing what the man came to offer. Ava even thought she saw a smile.

The next morning, Sister Frances came to her room dragging a suitcase behind her. She was followed by Sister Margaret who shook Ava awake.

“Ava, Ava, wake up,” Sister Margaret said. “You’re going away.”

“Where to?” Ava said, yawning. Behind the curtains of her window, she saw that the sun had barely risen on the horizon.

“London,” Sister Margaret replied.

“I did not send you here for chit chat, Sister Margaret,” Sister Frances said. “Go and help Ava prepare for our journey.”

xxx

Ava felt sick. She did not like how the ferry undulated to the motion of the waves. It did not help that she could not stand up to observe what was around her, or that Sister Frances did not bother to provide her with a scarf to shield her face from the harsh winds. The nun was by the railings, chatting with the man in the suit a few feet away from where Ava sat on her wheelchair. At least they were above deck. The man’s employer made sure that they had first-class accommodations.

It’s only about an hour into their trip, and after the ferry rode through a particularly large wave, that Ava remembered the words of the soothsayer.

_‘You will cross over water on a boat thrice in your life. You’ve already crossed your first. Once you cross your second, you will never set foot in this place again.’_

She was currently crossing her second. If what the woman said was true, she would never see the orphanage for the rest of her life. It’s not that she would miss the place. Finally leaving that hellhole for good was a dream come true. It’s just that she will regret it if the last thing she ever said to Sister Margaret, her only remaining friend in the world, was to write to JC and give the boy the address of the place where she will be staying in London.

As soon as she recalled that memory, her resolved strengthened. There was no way she would allow herself to set foot in St. Michael’s ever again. It was now up to her to make the woman’s prediction come true. She would heal this British girl as quickly as she could, and then she’d be off. She’d wheel herself away, anywhere her arms and her chair could take her.

Anywhere else would be better than where she came from.

xxx

When Ava saw where she would be staying in the next few weeks, her heart sank. She felt like she was just transferring from one prison to another. The house did not look like a place where a family lived, but rather, just another institution. She looked up at the five-story red-bricked building as the driver carried her from the car to the wheelchair in Sister Frances’ waiting hands. There was a man who was waiting by the wrought iron gate. He looked like no other person Ava has ever seen. 

“Impressive, isn’t it?” the man in the suit said, more to Sister Frances than to Ava. “This house was built in the 17th Century, owned by the family of the missus. Five bedrooms, a drawing room, a servants’ quarters, a downstairs kitchen and a wine cellar. There’s also a garden at the back with a nice little treehouse when my employer thought he would have a son. They only had that one daughter, what a shame.”

Ava was wheeled into the vast receiving area of the house. Every nook and cranny was decorated with big porcelain jars and human figures in white plaster. In the middle of the room was a couch set made from varnished wood on top of a blood-red rug. The girl reached out a hand to touch its intricate carvings. She noted peonies and lotuses. Ava remembered the flowers from the illustrations in a book on botany they had in the library back at St. Michael’s. That action earned a slap on the wrist from Sister Frances.

“Ava, we do not touch what is not ours,” Sister Frances hissed in her ear. “Apologies, my ward is not used to all of this luxury.”

A tall man in a brown, tweed jacket stood in the middle of the room. His thin, jet black hair was sleek and oiled back and a pair of round-rimmed spectacles rested on his nose bridge. He had the same features as the man waiting by the wrought iron gate; nothing like any person Ava has ever seen. A blonde woman held on to the man by the crook of his elbow.

The woman gave Ava a warm, welcoming smile, but the girl did not like how the man’s coal-black eyes scrutinized her from head to foot, so she reverted her gaze back to the entire room. The entire space was adorned with various trinkets from floor to ceiling; each wall featured a different painting. Ava saw watercolor pictures of ballerinas, rowboats, and an impression of a bridge, and a clocktower. Of course, she had no idea how much each item was worth, but she knew they were more valuable than her own life. She was sure that the scene was the same in the entire house, and Ava wondered how she would navigate the place without the wheels of her chair breaking anything expensive.

“You are late,” the man spoke. 

“I apologize, ambassador,” the man in the suit replied, bowing. “There was a bit of a mix-up in customs.”

“You said that the papers you processed for the girl would hold up,” the ambassador said.

“Yes, ambassador. The arrangement was just not coordinated properly with the personnel on the ground,” the man in the suit replied.

“I’m not asking for excuses,” the ambassador said curtly. “I trust that you have at least assessed the girl?”

“Yes, ambassador,” the man in the suit replied. “I found her miracles genuine based on the accounts of those she has healed and from what I witnessed myself.”

“She’s awake and has just finished eating breakfast,” another woman joined the party in the receiving room. Ava surmised that the newcomer was the same age as the woman in the ambassador’s arm. She wore her raven hair down to her shoulders and her English had a slight Spanish lilt like Sister Frances', like her own.

“Very well. Our daughter is waiting in her room. This way,” the ambassador said.

xxx

The first thing she noted when she was wheeled into the sick girl’s room was how spartan it looked. The space was almost like a nun’s quarters from back home, in huge contrast to the rest of the house. There was hardly anything inside the room, save for the bed and study desk where a pile of books nearly rested and the remnants of breakfast. Ava felt her stomach growl.

The raven-haired woman helped the girl sit up and Ava saw her features for the first time. She had her father’s jet black hair and her mother’s brown eyes. Tiny golden freckles featured on her pale, sallow skin and on her chapped lips formed a tiny smile.

She learned from the man in the suit that the sick girl’s name was Beatrice. In the boat on the way to England and in the ride to London, Ava repeated the name in whispers, relishing the way the syllables rolled out of her tongue. It was a beautiful name. It was only fitting that it belonged to someone as breathtaking as the girl in front of her.

The moment their eyes met, she felt it: the air inside the room was suddenly heavy and suffocating. She could often feel her patients’ afflictions even before they enter her room. Ava knew that whatever burden this Beatrice was carrying was causing all of her ailments. When she touched her chest, she was immediately aware that there was a matter that she would not reveal, and she was drowning from all its implications.

Hers was a complicated case. A disease of the spirit manifesting through the body. Certainly, it would take more than a single session to heal Beatrice. Still, the miracle girl could have started her work before the father’s scrutinizing gaze, could have proven that she was the right person for the job. Yet Beatrice had a secret, and whatever that was, Ava decided that it was safe with her. No matter how much the miracle girl wanted to be over and done with the job so that she could finally run away, Beatrice was safe with her. She would have to come back at night.

xxx

Ava felt the hum of the entire household through the wall of the bedroom provided for her by Beatrice’ father. She could tell the the noise has settled. At eleven in the evening, the household staff were done with their tasks and have retreated into their respective quarters. The members of the family retired earlier, at around nine in the evening. Ava knew that it was finally safe to go out.

She hoisted herself up to her wheelchair and began wheeling herself out of her room and into the dark hallway where Beatrice’ room was located. The entire mansion hummed in slumber, and only the creaking sound of her wheelchair reverberated throughout the corridor. She wished that Sister Frances had at least oiled it before they left Spain for London. She would hate it if the noise would give away her modus operandi. The miracle girl learned that the household had a curfew. It was not like that has ever deterred Ava before.

It was the fourth night she would be visiting Beatrice' room to work on her unsupervised. The first night was a revelation and has confirmed most of her suspicions. Beatrice was coughing up flowers, yellow tulips were growing inside her lungs. Ava has only ever come across a similar case once, with a man who was betrothed to a woman. His best friend, another man, accompanied him to see Ava. It was difficult at first, not knowing if she could help a man who Sister Frances would consider to be living in sin. 

Yet the Virgin lent her ears to the man’s pleas, she opened her sacred heart to the man’s secrets. When the man finally accepted who he is, he allowed his best friend to give him a kiss, lifting a life-long burden from his chest. Ava knew that if the Holy Mother cured the man of his afflictions by helping him find his true self, she would also accept Beatrice for what she is.

The wheelchair paused outside Beatrice’ room, and Ava took the same bobby pin from her hair that she had on the first night. She angled it into the keyhole, shaking the tiny metal that the jingling sound echoed throughout the corridor. Ava spent about two minutes aligning the insides of the contraption. She would already have the knob unlocked, if not for the fingers that encircled her wrist, stopping her.

The miracle girl looked up to see the other woman - the one they call Mother Superion - towering above her in her silk nightclothes.

‘Getting caught this early on? I must be getting rusty,’ Ava thought.

“You are making a lot of noise. The ambassador must have left for Poland, but his household staff is loyal to him. These nightly escapades are sure to be telegrammed to Warsaw,” Mother Superion whispered.

“I’m not aware that he left,” Ava said, retracting her hand from Mother Superion’s grip. “I’m sorry. I just find it hard to work on Beatrice under supervision.”

“I know. Don’t you think I don’t notice things in this house,” Mother Superion replied. “Here, just go about it quietly, please. I don’t want you to get caught by anyone less friendly.”

The older woman handed Ava a silver key and turned around without another word. The miracle girl watched her figure retreat into the shadows. She knitted her eyebrows, but then shrugged. Who was she to say no to easy access to her patient? This surely was the Virgin’s work.

When she wheeled herself into the room, Beatrice was already sitting up as if expecting her. Ava could not help but give the girl a smile which she returned shyly. 

“Did you ask your governess to hand me a key to this room, princesa?” Ava said as she wheeled herself to the bed. She noticed that Beatrice had a book in her hand, a different one from the one she was reading that first night.

“No, why?” Beatrice asked sounding worried.

“She handed me this when she caught me picking your lock earlier,” Ava replied, showing the other girl the silver key.

“No, no, no. Pa will surely hear about this now,” Beatrice replied. “About you working on me unsupervised.”

The smile from her face was gone, replaced by utter dread. The color from her cheeks that has just returned has completely drained. She grabbed her chest as a series of coughing racked through her lungs. Ava handed her the cheesecloth from the nightstand so she could spit the yellow petals out.

“Hey, it’s alright, princesa,” Ava said, putting a hand on the other girl’s arm. The coughing stopped instantaneously upon the miracle girl’s touch. “Don’t worry about her, I think she did not mind that I’m coming here at night. She just wants you well.”

Beatrice was still staring at the other girl’s hand on her arm. “How do you do that?”

“Do what?” Ava replied. She wiped away a drop of blood that lingered in the sick girl’s lower lip.

“Make me feel better in an instant?” Beatrice replied.

“Isn’t that what I am here for? I am the miracle girl your father sent for in order to cure you,” Ava replied. The hand that was on her arm went down to her wrist and Ava pulled her into another kiss on the cheek. 

“Well, how do you feel now, princesa?” Ava asked. Her hand went up to Beatrice’ chest, feeling for her lungs. She knew she managed to nip a few tulip bulbs off. She could do this every night, but she knows a new bud would just grow the next day. At this rate, she might never fully heal Beatrice, and her father would just send her back to Spain. Back to St. Michael's. That cannot happen.

“Like I could go for an entire night without coughing,” Beatrice replied. “Thank you. But would you please stop calling me that? It makes me feel so disconnected from everyone else. I am Beatrice, just Beatrice.”

“Alright, just Beatrice, we have to talk about what’s really causing this,” Ava started. “What I’ve been doing every night will only keep the inevitable at bay. It’s not a cure.”

The other woman swallowed a lump in her throat. “I am not going to pretend to not know what you mean, Ava, although I do not know what you want me to do about it. I tried to avoid it, erase that part of myself. Did you know I was in a convent? I dedicated my life to eradicating this sin and still, I am being punished in return.”

“Who do you think is punishing you, Beatrice?” Ava asked. “Your God? Or yourself?”

“I’m not ready to talk about it, Ava,” Beatrice replied. That was the end of that conversation.

“Alright. We’ll work on it,” Ava sighed, retreating for the time being. They have only known each other for a few days. Maybe, when she earns the other girl's trust, she would open up. “What were you reading?”

A burden seemed to be lifted from the girl’s chest when the Ava did not pursue the topic. She took the book from her lap and showed the other girl its cover.

“I don’t really know how to read,” Ava said, ducking her head.

“You read Summa Theologica on the cover of my book the other night,” Beatrice replied, sounding confused.  
  
“I only recognized the cover. We have that book back in the orphanage,” Ava blinked. She had no idea why she even asked Beatrice. The girl was probably reading some philosophical text that she could not even begin to comprehend. 

The miracle girl prepared to wheel herself out of the door in shame. Ava remembered the smirk on Sister Frances’ lips whenever the girl is reminded of her illiteracy, or all the other instances she has embarrassed herself in front of other people. She was not prepared to see the same expression on Beatrice’ face. From what little she knew about the other girl, Ava understood that she was very clever, was educated in a private school, had polished manners.

The miracle girl was about to turn on her wheels when she heard the sick girl speak again.

“The Life of St. Beatrice of Silva” Beatrice read, tracing the words on the cover as she spoke them. 

“I’m studying the life of the saint I was named after, look,” Beatrice said, showing Ava each word on the cover as she spoke them again.

Ava grinned in return, her smile almost eating up her entire face.

“What?” Beatrice asked. She looked confused but the miracle girl noticed a trace of a smile forming on her lips.

“It’s just that, Silva is my last name. I am Ava Silva,” Ava replied.

“That doesn’t have to mean anything,” Beatrice said. The smile that was just forming on her lips was gone and she blinked away. 

“You’re right. But you’re a believer. Don’t you believers always try to find meaning in things? God’s will, His divine plan, His perfect time and all that?” Ava replied.

“Are you saying that you are not a believer?” Beatrice said, sounding scandalized. It was the second time she was asking the miracle girl that question.

Ava held the other girl’s hand over the book. She felt that her patient’s instinct was to flinch, but in a split second, Beatrice’ hand settled underneath the miracle girl’s warm palm. Ava was proud. She knew that accepting another woman’s touch without guilt was a huge step for her.

“I’m no longer a believer, Beatrice. I already know. And I am here to help you with what I know. But I must ask something from you in return,” Ava replied.

Beatrice finally withdrew her hand, her courage wavering. “I told you I’m not ready to talk about it.”

“Oh, not that, silly,” Ava replied, grinning once more. “Will you read this book to me? I love stories. Back in the orphanage, I would make my patients pay me in stories. It’s the only way I could get through the boredom.”

“Ava, performing miracles is a task from the Virgin, herself,” Beatrice scolded the other girl.

“I know,” Ava said, wheeling herself closer to the bed. “That does not make it any less boring. Come on. I want to know about the life of this saint.”

“You want to hear about the life of St. Beatrice of Silva?” Beatrice said incredulously. 

“Yes? And why not? You were named after her and knowing what little I know about you, you’re probably trying to emulate her life. I want to get to know you,” Ava replied.

“Okay, but just because I’m not coughing up petals tonight because of you,” Beatrice said. The miracle girl thought that she heard a light chuckle from her patient and it made her heart skip a beat. Ava resolved that she would do everything to hear that laughter more often.

Beatrice opened the tome in her hands and started reading from the beginning. Ava found herself once again lost in a strange land and among strangers in a beautiful story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for this very late update! I hope I'm getting my groove back writing for avatrice. As always, I appreciate your comments!


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